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20110613

Malan couple murdered: police refused to investigate death threat

NOTHING ROBBED - not even their car which still had their keys in it. Her handbag was found next to her body, his wallet was still atop the kitchen cupboard with the bagged groceries. Mrs Malan worked as a clerk at the Children's Court, he was a retired police officer. The couple got a death threat through their maid; their dogs were poisoned a week earlier -- police refused to investigate their formal complaint:

Maid received warning at church that her employers ‘would be next’ after dogs were poisoned:

The mutilated bodies of Jan Malan, 64, and his wife Susan, 60, were found on the Mooilande-smallholdings outside Vereeniging: hacked and knifed to death with a hatchet. The Monday before they were murdered, the retired police officer was turned away from the Groendenne Satellite police station: he tried to have police investigate a death-threat he and his wife had received through their maid, and they also wanted to report that some of their dogs were poisoned.

They were murdered on Saturday June 11 2011: ambushed as they were carrying their groceries inside their homestead. NOTHING WAS STOLEN, not even their blue Toyota Corolla car; nor their legal guns locked inside the legally-registered gunsafe, nor their wallets or her handbag: it was lying right next to her mutilated body, her face covered by a scarf, when the couple were found.

Mrs Malan had worked as a clerk for the past 20 years at the Children’s court. Her throat was sliced right through; when found her face was covered up by a scarf; her husband was stabbed in the left-side of his body with a knife and had hatchet-wounds to his face and head.

Maid found her employers murdered: Their eldest daughter Mrs Minetta McLachlan, 39, (left facing camera, her sister Maryke Mortagua standing next to her, weeping amongst neighbours and friends) said her parents’ neighbours were alerted by the (unnamed) maid: “she wanted to fetch the laundry from their house and found my parents' bodies.” ' Mrs McLachlan phoned her sister Mrs Maryke Mortagua (33) and the daughters rushed to their parental home and waited outside while son-in-law Ian McLachlan, 43, went inside the homestead. " Ian said the house was very dark. A scarf covered Mrs Malan's face and he saw headwounds on Mr Malan's face,' said the neighbour to the Beeld journalist. Mr McLachlan also said two more of the couple's dogs, including yorkshire-terrier Zack, were also found poisoned on Saturday - after their other dogs were poisoned the previous Monday. visual:

"Your employers are next', the maid was warned at church: Two friends from the Vanderbijlpark Police Station accompanied Mr Malan to the smallholding and the men verified that they had found 'countless bones covered in (two-step) poison. Someone then warned their housekeeper at her church that the Malan couple 'would be next', but when Mr Malan tried to lodge a formal charge at the Groendenne-satellite police station, he was turned away 'due to jurisdiction problems'.The Malan couple then hired a security guard to look after the homestead during the nights until Thursday, when laser-alarms were installed around the smallholding's erf."We presumed that someone would try and kill my parents at night, not during the daytime,' Mrs McLachlan said.

Who overheard Mrs Malan tell her daughter about her shopping plans?

"My mom and I spoke Friday-night by phone and she said they wanted to go shopping on Saturday. The attackers broke a window to get inside the homestead, and ambushed my parents when they returned from shopping. They were attacked when they were carrying their groceries inside from their blue Toyota Corolla . "My father's wallet was untouched: on the kitchen cupboard together with the groceries. My mother 's habit always was to first put her handbag in the bedroom: her handbag was found next to her body in the hallway,’ said the grieving daughter (right, consoling her 13-year-old son Jedian).

The police were unable to say 'whether anything was stolen but the house was turned upside down, the couple's handguns were inside their registered gun-safe and their car was not stolen'. SAPF CONSTABLE Teboho Lephoto claimed that 'it will be investigated why Mr Malan was turned away from the police station when he tried to lodge a charge'.The police also claimed that they 'questioned two youths who were seen in the vicinity of Deneysville'. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Vrou-keelaf-gesny-20110612

Who overheard Mrs Malan telling her daughter about their shopping plans? My personal comment: Nobody said anything about the fact that someone very close-by, a person in a position of trust, must have overheard Mrs Malan when she told her daughter by telephone that the couple ‘would go shopping Saturday.'

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '